Landscape Restoration - a Nature-Based Solution
This session will be dedicated to the landscape approach to restoration. Ecosystem-based restoration at a landscape scale aims to restore ecological integrity at the same time as improving human wellbeing through multi-functional landscapes. Landscape restoration significantly increases and maintains carbon stocks and results in healthy resilient ecosystems, which provide the multiple goods and services people need, maintain biodiversity and enhance ecological integrity. Restoring the world’s natural capital in this manner offers the potential to provide crucial goods and services on which mankind depends, such as water, timber, energy and biodiversity, while enhancing carbon uptake and increasing the resilience of forests and people to climate change.
This session will concentrate on specific themes, including:
- Restoring for landscape resilience
- The role of landscape restoration in the urban-rural interface
- Landscape restoration and disaster risk reduction
Moderator
Speakers
Peter Besseau
Director International Affairs, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, Executive Director, International Mod, Co-Chair, Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration.
Peter Besseau is the Director of International Affairs for the Canadian Forest Service of Natural Resource Canada, based in Ottawa. Since 2003, he has also led, as Executive Director, the International Model Forest Network Secretariat (IMFNS), a global community of practice in large-scale integrated natural resource management with over 60 sites across the globe. In December 2013, Peter was also elected Co-Chair of the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration (GPFLR) a role that allows him to draw on his rich and varied experience in landscape approaches, particularly from a governance perspective, to support the objectives of the GPFLR. He has worked on international forest and forest policy issues for over 20 years including in Russia, Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
Speakers
Sean DeWitt
Senior Manager, Forest Landscape Restoration, World Resources Institute (WRI)
Sean is the Senior Manager for Forest Landscape Restoration at the World Resources Institute. He oversees the process to inspire, support and mobilize WRI’s partners to restore productivity and function of degraded land. Prior to joining WRI, Sean worked to improve livelihoods in Africa and Asia through financing and technology innovations as a Director at Grameen Foundation. Previously, he managed projects for the US Department of State in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, worked as a Management Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers and worked as an Industrial Engineer for Intel and the Walt Disney Company. Sean holds a BSc in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and an MSc in Development Finance from the University of London.
Li Hao
Project Director, Beijing Forestry Society (BFS)
Mr. Li Hao is the Project Director of Beijing Forestry Society (BFS). He joined the BFS team in Oct 2006 and took the leading responsibility for lots of international environmental projects, most of which focus on addressing water crisis in Beijing through natural and integrated approaches. Currently, Mr. Li is serving as a point man in the Global Water Initiative, in which Beijing was selected as one of the six global demonstration sites. He is dedicated to creating an innovative market-based mechanism for addressing water crisis in mega-cities in collaboration with strong partners such as Forest Trends and IUCN. Mr. Li received a master degree in forest management from Beijing Forestry University in 2003.
Andrea Nájera
Manager of Strategic Ecosystems Conservation, National Forest Institute (INAB)
Andrea Nájera Acevedo, is manager of Strategic Ecosystems Conservation at National Forests Institute (INAB) of Guatemala, where she coordinates activities related to strategic ecosystems of the country, especially cloud forests, dry regions and protected areas. She also works in activities related to the National Strategy of Forest Landscape Restoration, in coordination with various institutions involved. Previously Andrea served as a coordinator of NISP (National implementation support partnership of the Convention on Biological Diversity) at National Protected Areas Council of Guatemala, and as coordinator of conservation in the semiarid region of Eastern Guatemala at a local NGO. Andrea is a Guatemalan Biologist, holds an MSc in Ecology and an MSc in Political Sciences, both from University of Chile.
Piet Wit
Chair, Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Piet Wit graduated at Wageningen University (The Netherlands) in 1971 on Range Ecology with a focus on Grassland ecology, Plant taxonomy and -geography of tropical and subtropical regions and Entomology. Piet has been working a/o in integrated water management in The Netherlands. Piet’s experience includes long-term assignments on biodiversity conservation and management projects, in West Africa and Mongolia. Piet has been member of the CEM Steering Committee since 1996, being the CEM Chair since 2008. He was member of the board of the Netherlands Committee of IUCN for 12 years. For his work on the reintroduction of the Przewalski Horse in Hustai National Park Mongolia, Piet has been awarded with Mongolia’s Friendship medal. Currently Piet is actively involved with the protection of Chimpanzees in Guinea Bissau.
